In this epistolary essay, I theorize what otherwise-as-marronage can look like for teacher- educators and/or curriculum theorists who are isolated within or bifurcated between harmful institutional divides. I argue that marronage is already creating otherwise worlds and always has--and I propose that embracing marronage can not only help us heal…

In this theoretical paper, I examine the role and potential alterations to uses of social categories in qualitative research. Categories are socially constructed, imbued with power, and include race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. These categories, although constructs and subject to change, hold durability and are leveraged in much of…

In this paper, we use the lens of embodied language cognition and intersemiosis to argue for the importance of developing creative approaches to language work in classroom settings and we cite as an example some activities from a workshop that was developed for modern foreign languages (MFL) trainee teachers in London…

Eboo Patel proposes a meaning of interfaith conversation that can help guide Catholic universities in engaging students in meaningful interactions. This article aims to show how the Benedictine value of listening can inform Patel's meaning. Utilizing the philosophical hermeneutic tradition of Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author demonstrates that…

In this article, I connect the ways that learning is fundamental to life, for human and nonhuman beings. I write this article at a time of crystalline xenophobic backlash, the rise of several totalitarian regimes across the planet, as well as the formation and action from many social movements. I argue that in this moment, it is even more…

The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about the future of the DACA program, creating uncertainty among recipients and their families. A leaked draft of an internal memo hinted that the Trump administration intends to cut the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Given such ambiguity, advocates like Gregory Chen, the…

Nations actively write themselves onto human bodies. They etch and scratch their borders onto human flesh with figurative, often contradictory, ink that delivers stark material impact. The impacts hold their greatest force in metering the hinged consequences of contingent citizenship for some and unfettered citizenship for a few others. In this…

Educational policy analyses have tended toward either the impact of policies on student achievement or the furthering of progressive ideals, regularly theorized through concepts of democracy. In this theoretical essay, I suggest that democracy has become a vehicle for cauterized projects of individualized and contingent state status rather than…

In order to understand our present and future work in planting the seeds of solidarity, we excavate the past, through an exploration of transnational solidarity and the vestiges of U.S. legislative policy and philanthropy. Through life notes and sharing circles, we examine policies (Morrill Act of 1862, Refugee Act of 1980, and the Gates…

Development studies employs theories, tools and methods often found in geography, including the international field trip to a "developing" country. In 2013 and 2014, I led a two-week trip to Ethiopia. To better comprehend the effects of "the field" on students' learning, I introduced an assessed reflexive field diary to…

Rhetoric, policy, and debate about immigration and immigrants are saturated with the trope of deservingness. In nation/states built on stratification, deservingness acts as a discourse of racialization, narrating across racially minoritized groups to re-instantiate the benefits for the racially majoritized. In this theoretical essay, I draw from…

In this theoretical essay, I argue that the current incidences of backlash to diversity are best understood as a dynamic of complicated, historic and intertwined desires for racial diversity and white entitlement to property. I frame this argument in the theories of critical race theory and settler colonialism, each of which provide necessary but…

This article builds on theories of safe and brave spaces to demonstrate how to transform higher education institutions to be better able to incorporate multivalent forms of diversity. In particular, the article suggests leveraging the civic-oriented methodology of interfaith cooperation (Patel & Meyer, 2011) in order to encourage people to…

Since No Child Left Behind was passed nearly 20 years ago, test-based accountability policies have grown more comprehensive in scope than ever before. Tests have always mattered, but they have become substantively empowered, now dominating classroom conversation and activity. To ascertain the impact they have on people's lives one must involve…

In this theoretical article, I argue for a relational stance on learning as a way of reckoning with educational research as part of the settler colonial structure of the United States. Because of my geopolitical location to the United States as a settler colony, I begin by contrasting the stances of anticolonial and decolonial. I then analyze the…